In August 2008, Magic Technology ("Magic") launched an initiative to implement the balanced scorecard in its organisation. Alan Lo, the chief executive officer, oversaw the implementation of the balanced scorecard at the company's headquarters. Lo encountered both strategic and execution difficulties during implementation, such as too many strategic objectives, too many strategic performance indicators and a diverse focus of strategic action plans. Yet, such difficulties hinted at a more fundamental issue of too many formulated strategic directions in the first place.

In late 2009, Lo was in the middle of the execution phase to push the implementation of the balanced scorecard towards the department level. How would the difficulties encountered influence the initiative of the implementation of the balanced scorecard at the department level?

Functional Area :

Accounting & ControlStrategy & General Management

Learning Objective:

The teaching objectives of the case are: 1. To understand the concept of the balanced scorecard, including the four perspectives of financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth. 2. To learn about the difficulties encountered and suggestions related to implementing the balanced scorecard at Magic.